Atleast my nails were pretty... for a second....

So.....what is this you ask????

THIS, my friends, is what happens when I decide to paint my fingernails for the first time in two years. That's right.

Normally, I think logically. I think to myself, Self, there is no need to have pretty fingernails because you are a stay at home mother, and nobody cares about your cuticles. Tuesday, though, I get a wild hair and think, I wonder what it would feel like to scrape the mashed bananas out from under my nails, pull out a file and some polish, and actually try to have atleast one part of my body look cute for a couple of days.

I'll tell you....the above is what happens.

Yep....the above picture is what happens when you are in your first trimester of pregnancy (which we all know makes you so tired that a nuclear bomb could explode, and all of the newly pregnant women out there would still have their chin resting in their palms with drool slowly oozing down to their elbows with each comatose muscle twitch). I finished painting my nails, and let me tell you, they were beautiful...like Revlon commercial beautiful. I put down the bottle of polish to admire my work, and then in true "pregnant brained" fashion, completely forgot to put it away.

Enter Ava, my 19 month old tornado...I mean toddler.....

Within seconds, this child grabs the bottle of polish, runs into our kitchen (where our nice tile floor is, of course) and proceeds to chuck it to the ground like it is one of those Fourth of July poppers.

Now--cut to me jumping over the back of the couch to sweep up my joyfully squealing child in order to save her from the millions of shards of broken glass that surround her tiny bare feet. She was fine, by the way. Thanks for asking.

I plunk her down in her high chair so that I can pick up the glass and wipe up the polish. I sprint to the bathroom only to find that I am completely out of nail polish remover. Fan-freaking-tastic.

I call Lorraine, my neighbor who has saved my behind in more instances than I can count, and within minutes, she is knocking on my door with nail polish in one hand and paint thinner in the other. She was like a stay-at-home MacGuyver. In no time at all, the floor had no evidence of being so violated by fuschia enamel, and Lorraine was out the door in one angelic blur.

Atleast my nails look nice. I thought as I glanced down to admire my work once again.

That was about the time that I noticed that the scrubbing of the floor with polish remover and rags had completely desecrated my nails until they looked like they had melted into a puddle at the tips of my fingers.

Guess I need to fix those. I thought for a millisecond before I realized that my nailpolish was now all soaked in rags and resting in the bottom of the trash can, and Lorraine just walked out with the rest of her polish remover.

Crap.

So, it's a week later, and my nails are still half melted and half chipped off by my other hand. I couldn't get my hands to look more white trash if I tried. I swear, I'm going to put a piece of straw in my teeth and start talking about "chewin' tabaccey" just to finish the facade....

I swear, though, for those five minutes, my hands were stunning.

Sigh.....

Welcome to my life...

Well, hello there....

Let's start with the pleasantries, shall we?

My name is Kristi.

I'm married to Eric.

We have a daughter (almost 19 months as of today) named Ava.

I'm taking a break from my job as a high school English teacher to be a stay-at-home mother

....and I just found out that I'm preggers with number two.

Got it? There will be a test later.

I figured that this would be a good time to start a blog so that I can document my experiences as I get more and more pregnant and have a toddler at home who is very much entering that "What exactly do you mean by NO?" phase. Oh, what crazy shenanigans will ensue, I'm sure.

I got the positive result just a couple days ago on July 7, 2008. That means, this baby should be popping out somewhere around March 22, 2009. That is, unless he or she decides to mess with mommy and force the date up by three weeks (Long story...but let's just say that Ava was stubborn before she was even out of the womb) .

So....here's the kick in the pants for you all today....

The day after I got my positive result, I ended up with HORRIBLE diarrhea.

(Oh, maybe this is where I tell you that this is MY blog, and I tend to be very straight-forward and descriptive about whatever happens to be going on in my life at that time. If that has to be about my bowel function...so be it....)

Moving on...

I tried to think nothing of it. Well, atleast ignore it as much as you can as you are pushing your grocery cart swiftly down the store aisle to the restroom while trying to simultaneously hold your cheeks together. I mean, come on, I'm pregnant. This must just be a pregnancy symptom, right? I didn't have it with Ava, but all pregnancies are different I hear.

I stopped trying to ignore it somewhere between noticing blood in my poo and feeling like someone poured a mixture of Clorox bleach, apple cider vinegar and death juice into my intestines.

So...I go to the doctor. It went somewhere along these lines...

"Doc. I think my stomach is going to implode. And, if I push any harder, I'm going to push out a four week old embryo. I'd like to keep the baby in there long enough to not look like tiny sea monkey if I could."

"Hmmmmmmmmm.......let's do some fecal testing."

"Great idea. Let's do more work on my already fatigued bum-hole. It sounds fabulous."

"Well, if you want, I can send you home with some of the containers, and you can do it yourself when you go to the bathroom. Then, just bring it back in."

"I can't think of a better way to spend my day. Let's do it."

This man sends me home with FOUR containers that I have to fill to a certain line with my own poo. I'm not sure if you are understanding the gravity of the situation here. I'm on the can every five minutes so that I can shoot out the equivalent of a firey liquid dime, and I have to now do it in a poo catcher contraption, scoop it out with a wooden tongue depresser and put it in a container until the preservation liquid gets up to a certain line. I quickly realize that this is going to take approximately thirty-two poo experiences to fill ONE bottle. By the time these are filled, I will either be all better or dead with a poop scooper in my hand and my pride nowhere to be found. Lovely.

And...as all you pregnant women with hightened smells out there know, there is just nothing better than sitting there whiffing your own poo-funk when you can already smell what Mrs. Johnson cooked for dinner across the street six days ago. Yea me.

So...as this first post greets you, Ava isn't even awake yet, I am trying to get over this intestinal thing, and I'm hoping that my little sea monkey isn't in there holding what will one day be a nose and saying, "Thanks mom. This horrifically smelling womb is just awesome. Well done."

Uh oh...gotta go. Mr. Poo is knocking on the back door.

Welcome to my world. It's quite a ride...